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The International Classification of Goods and Services, a Tool for Global Registration of Marks

04/09/2014

The International Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks was established by an Agreement concluded at the Nice Diplomatic Conference, on June 15, 1957, was revised at Stockholm, in 1967, and at Geneva, in 1977, and was amended in 1979.

 

The countries party to the Nice Agreement constitute a Special Union within the framework of the Paris Union for the Protection of Industrial Property. They have adopted and apply the Nice Classification for the purposes of the registration of marks. Each of the countries party to the Nice Agreement is obliged to apply the Nice Classification in connection with the registration of marks, either as the principal classification or as a subsidiary classification, and has to include in the official documents and publications relating to its registrations of marks the numbers of the classes of the Classification to which the goods or services for which the marks are registered belong.

 

Use of the Nice Classification is mandatory not only for the national registration of marks in countries party to the Nice Agreement, but also for the international registration of marks effected by the International Bureau of WIPO, the African Intellectual Property Organization (OAPI), the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO), the Benelux Organisation for Intellectual Property (BOIP) and the European Union Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs) (OHIM). The Nice Classification is also applied in a number of countries not party to the Nice Agreement.

 

The Nice Classification is based on the Classification prepared by the United International Bureaux for the Protection of Intellectual Property (BIRPI) – predecessor of WIPO – in 1935. It was that Classification, consisting of a list of 34 classes and an alphabetical list of goods, that was adopted under the Nice Agreement and later expanded to embrace also eleven classes covering services and an alphabetical list of those services.

 

In Vietnam, if an application for trademark registration is not classify according to the list of goods/services of NICE or the annotate of an alphabetical list of goods, the classification will perform under Notification no. 5377/TB-SHTT dated July 16, 2012 of the National Office of Intellectual Property, guiding on NICE Version no. 10. 

 

About Pham & Associates

Pham & Associates is one of a leading intellectual property law firm in Vietnam. We provide counsel and representation in every area of patents, trademarks, copyrights, enforcement of intellectual property rights as well as their representation in arbitration and litigation proceedings etc.

 

For further information about our organization and services, please visit our website: www.pham.com.vn

 

 

 

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